The end of an experiment

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Mark Latham flamed into Labor's leadership, and he's flamed out
even more spectacularly. His quitting Parliament is a last dramatic
political gesture, leaving his successor the burden of an unwanted
byelection.

The past few days have been appalling for the Labor party.
There's just one bright side. Within several weeks of the election,
it became clear that Latham almost certainly wouldn't lead Labor
into the 2007 election. But it was possible he might hang on for
some time, making a long period of debilitating instability likely.
That has been short-circuited.

What are the lessons of the failed Latham experiment? Two big
ones. Labor misread the electorate, and it misread its
candidate.

It thought the voters would warm to generational change - that
younger people in particular would be persuaded away from a prime
minister in his mid-60s. In fact, electors had other priorities.
They wanted someone they knew and trusted, rather than to take a
risk. They were interested in Labor's new product. But it didn't
come with guarantees and its reliability was questionable.

Labor's misunderstanding of the voters' mood is explicable;
there was less excuse for overlooking Latham's serious personal
flaws. His colleagues knew his temperament - they should have known
it wasn't suited to the rigours of leadership.

Labor's best prospect was that the voters wouldn't have time to
catch up with the real Latham before they passed judgement. They
did. After the election debacle, some Latham supporters said the
trouble had been that the voters hadn't had time to get to know
him. The problem was the opposite.

After Simon Crean's leadership collapsed, Latham was able to
muster the numbers for the wrong reasons. Some were driven by
bitterness about the undermining of Crean. In that sense, the
Latham era was an extension of Crean's reign. Crean had an
inordinate sway over the succession, the party unwisely letting a
ditched leader influence its choice. In addition, some figures of
influence, like then-Senate leader John Faulkner, were simply
wrong-headed in opting for Latham.

What are the lessons of the failed Latham experiment? Two big ones. Labor misread the electorate, and it misread its candidate.

Nevertheless, things started well. Latham put some fresh issues
on the table that resonated with people. In fact, however, what
seemed positives had a negative side that was just concealed for a
while. His focus on early childhood education sounded new and
interesting; later "reading to children" came to be a metaphor for
Latham's obsession with what he wanted to talk about. His issues
began to look like marginal gimmicks, pursued to the neglect of
more central community concerns. This left Labor exposed to the
Liberals' devastatingly successful election scare campaign on
interest rates.

Latham often operated unilaterally, most dramatically in
committing to pull Australian troops out of Iraq by Christmas. When
he consulted with colleagues, too often his communications
mechanism was on "transmit" rather than "receive".

He thought tactically, sometimes successfully, but in big things
badly. His decision to hold back election policies was a
fundamental mistake. Labor's campaign treated voters like children
who could be dazzled by surprises. The shiny big policy presents
had been delayed until the last minute. People proved less gullible
than he'd expected.

Defeat and its aftermath exposed Latham's serious character
faults. Bad times saw him retreat into himself. He was unable to
easily accept blame, and was surprisingly unresilient.

He couldn't convince his party he had a plan to take it forward.
One reason was because Labor's loss was so bound up in what voters
thought about its leader. The party couldn't move on until he did -
literally.

In the past week, Latham again demonstrated weird behaviour, a
trait that has reprised in his career. By hiding from public and
colleagues, instead of being upfront about his illness and future,
he highlighted he was out of touch with political reality.

Finally, his conduct was considered so unacceptable that the
premiers, especially Peter Beattie and Bob Carr, manhandled him out
of the job. It was one of the most extraordinary exercises in
recent federal politics but then Latham, the master of the
unconventional, invited a radical approach.

The Latham experiment has left the party in a worse position
than when he took over. It has gone backwards in House of
Representatives seats. The Senate will be in Government hands from
July 1. And the internal bitterness is almost as bad as it gets.
Not a happy prospect for the next leader.

It is unsurprising that there is a big push for Kim Beazley to
be the successor rather than for another experiment in generational
change. The party is desperate for the easiest possible passage out
of hell.

Beazley and Kevin Rudd have been running hard for days. Rudd has
been disadvantaged by having to campaign from Indonesia; yesterday
he was telling one radio station Latham shouldn't be hurried, then
switched to calling for a "quick smart" resolution to stop the
party becoming a laughing stock.

Rudd, who's keeping his options open, faces a tricky decision.
If there is a groundswell for Beazley, should Rudd take him on
anyway? Beazley might be favourite but ballots can be
unpredictable. Even if Rudd lost, a respectable vote would stake a
claim for the future, especially if Beazley failed in 2007.

On the other hand, if Rudd quickly assessed he didn't have the
numbers and withdrew gracefully, he'd win points in the party (and
should be given a substantial domestic portfolio).

Beazley has been told that if he becomes leader, he must make
sure he gathers around him a strong and independently minded staff
and bring to the job no deals that would constrain him. At
yesterday's news conference he made the point he'd come with "no
promises, no deals".

Not many leaders get the sort of opportunity Beazley is grasping
for. Remember John Howard lost only one election. Beazley has
already had two attempts. A third chance would be, for him, a small
political miracle (although a third loss would be the more
personally devastating). A fired-up Beazley declared yesterday
Labor should not be talking about a two-term comeback - the next
election is winnable. Presently, Labor's chances are rated as
modest.

But if John Howard retires, a Costello prime ministership might
give the ALP a better prospect. A Costello-Beazley battle would be
an interesting twist on the "generational" fight of 2004.